Romney, Murkowski, and Collins: what about those RINOs in 2020?
Senators Murkowski, Collins, and Romney have imposed their low-mid level Conservatism on the party for years. It used to be their party. It has not been that Country Club party for years now. Republicans may lose the Senate this time around, and with this Supreme Court vote, it is more likely to happen. But honestly- the removal of Sens. Murkowski, Collins, and Romney is something that needs to be done. Murkowski has been a vote against what is needed for too long. Collins has had to do her dance for decades, and Romney? Well, Romney was never worth a nickel. He seems to play to an audience that no one else sees.
But the three are very different and in states that are different as well. And their histories of being primaried from the right are different, too. It’s not one size fits all.
Romney’s state of Utah is very Republican, and Romney probably is no longer popular there. I believe he could easily be replaced by a more conservative Republican, but there’s one catch: he was elected in 2018 and isn’t up for re-election till 2024. The GOP might be stuck with him till then.
How did Romney win the Utah seat? It was actually a close campaign against his GOP challenger for the nomination (see this and this). But once he won the GOP nomination his victory was practically assured. The degree of his opposition to Trump was known (at least to a certain extent), but I doubt very much that the people of Utah guessed what he had planned in terms of opposition to the entire conservative agenda in the Senate. I think any primary against him by even a moderately strong GOP candidate in 2024 could go well, but I don’t think there’s much to be done till then.
Lisa Murkowski is also in a red state, but nevertheless Alaska is not as strongly Republican as Utah (few states are). She is the daughter of a former GOP leader of Alaska who appointed her when he left his Senate seat to become governor, and at the time she was more conservative than now. Nevertheless she was primaried by a Tea Party candidate in 2010 and lost the GOP nomination. But you may recall that she led a write-in campaign and won, which was surprising.
After that, Murkowski turned more liberal. And yet in 2016 she won the primary again against challengers from the right. I’m not sure why she won, but my guess is that her challengers just weren’t strong candidates. She won the election despite not being particularly popular:
Murkowski was re-elected with 44.4% of the vote, becoming the first person in history to win three elections to the U.S. Senate with pluralities but not majorities, having taken 48.6% in 2004 and 39.5% in 2010. Miller’s 29.2% finish was the best ever for a Libertarian candidate in a U.S. Senate election in terms of vote percentage.
Murkowski is not up for re-election till 2022. Again, it seems the GOP is stuck with her, and yet it also seems as though a more reliably conservative candidate could win in Alaska. However, it’s not as though Murkowski hasn’t been primaried from the right before; she has, and in 2010 that primarying was successful and yet she managed to work around it even though she never got a majority of the vote.
Collins of Maine is in an entirely different position. Firstly, she is up for re-election this year. Secondly, she is in a purple state that trends blue. So I have long felt that Collins is the only type of Republican that could win a Senate election there. If she were not running I believe a Democrat would win the seat, unlike in Utah and Alaska. There was a Republican attempt to primary her this year, but it failed. Collins used to be very popular in Maine but her decision to stand behind Kavanaugh has lost her some support among moderates.
Collins faces a very difficult dilemma concerning voting for a Ginsburg replacement, but she is in trouble anyway either way she goes with this. Polls showed her significantly behind her Democratic challenger even before Ginsburg’s death, but are the polls correct? If Collins fails to vote to confirm, she probably loses because some conservatives in Maine will almost certainly turn against her. If she votes to confirm, many more moderates may abandon her and she will lose for that reason. But my guess is she’s toast either way, and that she actually stands a better chance of winning if she votes to confirm. Then again, I’m not a political strategist.
And of course, if Trump does win a second term but the GOP loses the Senate, that would be the end of approval for any of Trump’s judicial appointments.
This SCOTUS fight IS the hill to die or win on.
No temporizing RINOs !
“Collins used to be very popular in Maine but her decision to stand behind Kavanaugh has lost her some support among moderates.”
It’s a puzzle.
Voting to confirm a decent and, frankly, not very doctrinaire guy like Kav just doesn’t seem like an extreme action to me. Toss in how shabbily he was treated …
Maybe Sen Collins should buy about 50,000 copies of the book Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court and send it a lot of voters. It’s an excellent account of media bias and shenanigans.
Romney’s behavior over the last several years makes no sense except as an exercise in spite. He’s a centimillionaire, he has 20 grandchildren, and if he wants to keep working he can buy a business and run it. Perambulating around between Washington, a district office and notional residence in Utah, and his home in Massachusetts must severely cut into the time he can spend with his wife of 50 years. As for Murkowski, she’s a skeevy character, and it’s quite dismaying that a Tea Party candidate couldn’t knock her off in 2010. Collins has always been Collins (and her voting record is per the American Conservative Union to the right of that of Wm Cohen, the Republican who held the seat from 1979 to 1997). NB, Murkowski cast a ballot against Brett Kavanaugh after all that outrage and Romney cast a ballot in favor of the Vindman-generated shampeachment. One of these three is not like the other two.
“Collins used to be very popular in Maine but her decision to stand behind Kavanaugh has lost her some support among moderates.”
Maybe. Given how the 2018 elections turned out, my wager would be that the broad public paid no attention to the Kavanaugh imbroglio. The 7% or so who are swing voters may just not be motivated by such controversies.
“…It has not been that Country Club party for years now.”
I blame the co-option of the Episcopal Church in NH.
Art Deco:
It’s not just Kavanaugh. But Kavanaugh is a significant part of Maine turning on Collins this time much more than in past elections, when she was more popular across the board.
See this and this, for example.
In Maine, Collins’ support does not just depend on Republicans plus some Independents. Maine is pretty much a blue state or at the very least dark purple. Collins’ support depends on some moderate Democrats crossing over as well – at least, it used to.
I’m not the only one to notice the comment that “her decision to stand behind Kavanaugh has lost her some support among moderates.”
I have long felt that “moderates” were largely phonies, cowards, devoid of firm principles. Collins is like that–she stands for nothing. Better the moderates than her!
Maine is really a micro-version of California. The Left owns the coast, properties are very expensive, taxes are high, and people mostly only summer there since winters are bitter, except Portland, where condoms are handed out to 8th graders in public schools. Go 20 miles inland, it is dull and poor, with very low population density. I’ve been on the coast many times; I love lobsters and clams!
Maine is the least religious and whitest state in the Union. It has a high % of old geezers as well. But diversity is creeping into Portland.
Romney only ran for the Senate because he wanted to be the Senator who went to the White House to tell Trump to resign because Mueller had the goods on him and the Senate would convict. This was proven when Romney voted to convict on the bullsh*t Ukraine nonsense.
“I doubt very much that the people of Utah guessed what he had planned in terms of opposition to the entire conservative agenda in the Senate.” neo
I’m doubtful as well. That also puts paid to the notion that had Romney been elected to the Presidency in 2012 that he would have supported any pushback against the left. Romney is simply in favor of a ‘principled’ surrender to tyranny.
However, there is a partial answer to these Benedict Arnold’s. States in which Republicans hold a majority in the legislature and with the Governorship can pass recall legislation for US Senators. That would make Senators accountable for blatant misrepresentation to the voters.
Utah is firmly in that camp having a ‘trifecta’. Alaska possibly, there Republicans hold a shaky majority. Maine is currently a lost cause with a majority supporting cultural and racial suicide.
Combine the above with extending the Electoral College to the States and we end the dominance of democrat majorities in the big cities. Outlaw support for totalitarian ideologies and the hard core left is relegated to the ashes of history.
Of course it may well take another Civil War to achieve that, along with an Article V Convention.
When Republican Senators and Congresscritters *fear* (in the fullest sense of the word) their own voters more than the Donor Class and the Progressive Left (but I repeat myself), things might begin to look up.
Neo, you really shouldn’t be citing Politico and the Left-leaning Portland paper as the authority voices on Collins, should you?
There is Bangor! It has reference to the other ME Senator, King, who feels Ginsburg’s “final wish” for the next POTUS to replace her be observed.
Yep, stall the courts!
“And of course, if Trump does win a second term but the GOP loses the Senate, that would be the end of approval for any of Trump’s judicial appointments.”
Ah, but if Trump wins and the GOP loses the Senate, you’ll see a HUGE push to confirm in the lame duck session. Assume Collins loses her election. What reason would she have for not confirming in that case? She’s out anyway.
You may get the same push if Trump loses, but the GOP holds the Senate.
Do we have to be at all concerned about the “legitimacy” of our SCOTUS justices – in terms of who nominates and confirms them when?
Or how their perceived illegitimacy will destroy any trust people have in decisions made under the fiction of a non-political SCOTUS? Kind of like were we are now, only worse!
Justice Kavanaugh is now “sort of” accepted as a fait accompli in spite of the full court press by the Dems. And we put up with Justices Kagan and Sotomayor since they were “legitimately” confirmed during a Democrat controlled presidency and Senate.
But any scenario where the nomination or confirmation of RBG’s replacement takes place between the Nov. 4 and Jan. 2 period of continued Republican control may be called into question as to whether that person was “really” properly confirmed.
My own view is “full speed ahead” before this opportunity is closed to us forever (or for a very long time). But maybe we should give some thought to how the results will be perceived and accepted longer term?
Cicero:
I don’t have time to go looking for the perfect citation for a quick comment, particularly when search engines often bury the ones from sources on the right, putting them on a much later page. But I don’t really think there’s any disagreement about the fact that Collins’ support got much lower in Maine because of her Kavanaugh vote. I’ve read many references to it over the last year or so. It seems to be common knowledge around New England. Whether she will lose the election I don’t know because I don’t trust the polls, but they certainly show her losing.
“Do we have to be at all concerned about the “legitimacy” of our SCOTUS justices – in terms of who nominates and confirms them when?… But maybe we should give some thought to how the results will be perceived and accepted longer term?” – R2L
No.
Next question.
Barrett’s nomination should be in the Senate’s hands by Monday 9:00 a.m. Tuesday at the latest.
POTUS has work to do. Senate has an advise & consent function which they should fulfil. Then SCOTUS gets on to the work they have to do.
Ds are gonna scream blue murder. BFD. Scream.
RINOs are gonna…well who cares. Do that.
Barrett should be wearing her new robes by Halloween.
And on All Saints’ Day they can do an exorcism of RBG’s former office.
If they’ll let me fly in I’m free that day.
Barrett seems to be a crowd favorite but on top of that she recently went through a confirmation process so that will make it harder for the Dems to play games. Not that that will stop them.
Romney, Murkowski and Collins each have their own reasons for waffling on voting before the election for a conservative Trump nominee, but Trump could box them in by following his nomination this week with a demand that Biden also ‘nominate’ a specific person for the position so the people (and those three senators) would know what’s at stake. If Biden refuses it’s to Trump’s advantage. If Biden does then either he names a moderate which might help him this November 3rd, OR he names a judge to the left to appease the ‘progressives’ which I suspect would boost Trump’s vote. Naming a leftist judge will also make it more likely that Romney and other wobblers will vote for Trump’s choice either before the election, or after if Trump loses, but before January when Biden would formalize his nomination of the leftist.
I agree with this view. Collins is probably toast either way. She can do the right thing, if she’s a conservative, and it’s hard to tell how conservative an office holder is when they are representing a Northeast state. They are not allowed to show. But her Hail Mary pass would be to vote for a new Justice before the term ends. It just might make enough of a statement to enough people to make a difference. As for Murkowski and Romney- we are, of course, stuck with them. Romney is in his last hurrah and I don’t think he’ll see another term as a Republican (though he might try as a Democrat). I don’t get Murkowski and have not since her write-in campaign. But she has been a consistent obstacle for years. There are enough obstacles put in front of Republicans and conservatives without our own team placing them there, for whatever public perceptions they think they are creating.
All I can say about Maine is that both times I landed at Bangor with a layover , or refueling maybe, on a military flight, there were lots of people in the airport welcoming the troops. We basically walked through a line with people on both sides thanking us and such.
jon baker:
Bangor is in northern Maine. Very different there from southern Maine. But it’s the south where the population resides. If you look at the maps of the 2 districts, you can see the huge difference in geographic area, reflecting the different makeup of the 2 districts. The northern one is about 3/4 rural, the southern one is half and half. That makes them different politically, but they are growing more alike in that the north is becoming more liberal recently (although I don’t know what will happen in 2020). In 2016 the northern district had a Republican representative but since 2018 both districts have been represented by Democrats.
“I don’t get Murkowski and have not since her write-in campaign.”
A commenter at Powerline who lives in AK said the state is not so much conservative as it is cranky libertarian. His description reminded me of a bumper sticker I saw once, “PRO-CHOICE ON ABORTION, GUNS AND DRUGS”. So Murkowski’s off-the-reservation act apparently fits the mood there, unfortunately.
I live in Alaska and voted for Murkowski in the write-in. As a rule Alaskans don’t pay much attention to the primaries and Miller won the primary. Murkowski won the election because Miller is a dumpster fire of a person. He had a reporter he didn’t like handcuffed by security at a rally of his. As long as Murkowski fights for Alaskan issues she’s golden.
Romney says he supports holding a vote on the floor for Trump’s nominee. But will he actually vote “yay”? I hope so, but I’m not holding my breath.